"And what is this pride of wealth, after all, growing up into the aristocracy of wealth, the usurpations of wealth, the oppressions of wealth, grinding the masses of humanity into the dust to-day, throughout our modern Christendom, in the middle of our nineteenth century civilization and progress, with a hoof more flinty, more swinish, and MORE MURDEROUS (capitals ours) than that of semi-barbarous feudalism in its bloodiest days."
He understands the intolerable exploitation of capital better than we do, for he lives in a country where slavery has not stepped in to shield the laborer. He, the laborer, is a "slave without a master," and his oppressors, "cannibals all."
Mr. G's. book appears to us to carry the doctrine of human equality to a length utterly inconsistent with the power and control which ordinary Christian marriage gives to the husband over the wife; yet be assures us he is the unflinching friend of Christian marriage. The purity of his sentiments revolt at the conclusions to which his abstract doctrines inevitably lead. Yet his idea of Christian marriage may differ, so far as the power of the husband is concerned, widely from ours. We are sure he would do nothing, designedly, to impair the purity and sacredness of the relation.
Mr. G. is a Christian socialist, and looks to a proximate millenium to rectify the false relations of men and property, in his own society, and to the arm of the Federal Government to set things right in the South. Why not leave all to Providence, especially since the right of the Government to abolish Southern slavery is denied by all respectable authority outside of abolition; and also by the Garrisonians, who are the most thorough-going of all abolitionists, and of all disorganizers. Mr. Goodell's plan of "rectifying human relations" at the North, by a millennium, is quite as common as that of Mr. Greely, Andrews and Owen, each of whom has discovered a new social science that they are sure will fit the world, because it wont fit a village.
We really think that a man of Mr. Goodell's nice sense of justice and propriety, should have hesitated long ere he invoked a God to do that which he would be ashamed to do himself. If it be wrong to strip the rich of their possessions, why hope or expect that God will perpetrate a wrong at which human conscience revolts, when it is proposed to be done by human agency.
After an elaborate argument, to prove the advent of a millennial state of society, through the instrumentality of Christianity, Mr. Goodell, on page 510, vol. II, of his Democracy of Christianity, thus sums up and concludes:
"Glance over, again, the items included in these predictions:—The general and permanent prevalence of peace,—the result of justice, equity, SECURITY, and the actual possession, [italics his] by each and every one of 'his vine and fig tree'—that is, of soil sufficient to produce the needful fruits of the earth, or, in some way, a supply for his physical wants.
"Add to this, the general diffusion and great increase of knowledge, especially moral and religious knowledge, which includes the knowledge of social relations, duties and rights,—the knowledge that implies 'wisdom,' and that wisdom which begins with 'the fear of the Lord.' Next the application of all this knowledge, wisdom and fear of the Lord, to the concerns of civil government, insomuch that 'the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of Christ,' and the dominion be given to The People, who at that period, shall have become purified and instructed by him,—who shall all be righteous, who 'shall all know the Lord, from the least to the greatest,' and even 'the feeble among them shall be as David.' To this, add general contentment and enjoyment, facilities of social and international intercourse, the general prevalence of the spirit of benevolence and brotherly love, and the absence of those maddening and satanic temptations, delusions and prejudices, that have so long deceived, enslaved and embroiled the nations;—all this cemented by the true spiritual worship, protection and love of the Common Father of all men.
"Is any thing wanting to complete the picture, and to ratify the assurance of a state of liberty, equality, common brotherhood, common interests, common sympathy, and common participancy in social rights, immunities, privileges and arrangements? Must we need be told in addition to all this, that 'the thrones of despotism shall be cast down,' that the 'beast' of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny and usurpation, the persecutor 'of the holy apostles and people,' shall be given 'to the burning flames,' that the yoke of domination 'shall be dashed into pieces as a potter's vessel,' that 'subversion' shall tread upon the heels of subversion, and one despotism overturn another, till He, 'whose right it is, shall rule.' That the masses shall be elevated, the exclusives brought low, that the 'lofty' shall be 'humbled,' and the 'haughty bowed down'—in such a period of general possession, general justice, equality and contentment as has been already and previously described?"